This Week in Pictures [04-07-07]:

Maureen, great question!

I personally much prefer a home be professionally staged if it is unoccupied. Actually just last week one of the houses I shot was staged by an agent ("because home stager are just too expensive" - btw this was a 30K commission to that agent). The agent did a good job actually but nothing like what a real home stager could have done for the house. Frankly it makes my job more challenging, trying to impart depth in a room with little or no furniture.

I had actually plan to write a blog at some point supporting stagers (I'm virtually unbiased unlike advocating photography). I'm surprised more photographers and stagers don't work together.

Anyway, I think it's a disservice to the agent's client in such a case. However, I just bite my tongue as I'm a vendor and I don't really feel it's my place to offer my opinion on the matter. I think it's quite similar to the same thought process as thinking a point and shoot camera in the hands of a non-professional is acceptable for the main marketing tool (photos) of a million dollar home. I see it all the time though.

Fortunately virtually all my clients are top agents or on their way to being so. In general they are business people and sales people, not just the latter. They understand professional vendors enhance their brand and that a good business person knows when to invest. I don't know a single one who doesn't use professional photography and staging.

As far as unattractive properties - I sometimes run into that though mostly I focus on 800K and up so typically the houses are at lease 'nice' (though that depends on how much of the price is land value of course). Last week I was hired to shoot two houses which were described as fixers and I would say that was a generous description. I do the best I can in that instance though it's certainly pushing my limits. There's only so much artistry you can bring to properties like that.

Jennifer, Thanks very much. :)

Cheers, -B

Mike, no way. Why spend money on a camera when my cell phone will take 'good' pics! LOL. Actually, I've seen cell phone pics on the MLS...even worse, no pics at all.

Maureen, That's interesting. If your market doesn't yet understand the value of professional marketing it can be hard to break in I imagine. I get a lot of my business because home sellers demand better service for their 30, 60, 120 thousand dollars they are paying to sell their house. I also provide agents with a professional portfolio which I lend out when they head to the listing presentation (you stager types might want to use something like this as well!). It works wonders as a dazzler during the listing presentation and agents now call me whenever they think they have some good competition.

My fees are a fraction of the cost of losing a listing. I would think the same would be true of a stager. Actually one extra listing a year typically pays for using me all year and then some. My clients not only win more listing presentations, they also get more referrals because of the 'novel' approach of using a professional photographer.

All good news for us creative types. :)

Cheers, -B

Aaron, thanks as usual - I agree but of course you and I are possibly a bit biased even if our position is so logical. ;)

Loreena, I use the canon 17-40mm for about 90% of the shots. The other 10% are a 24mm TS-E lens. I have a full frame body so 17mm = a true 17mm or about 110 degree FOV rounded. This year I'll switch to the new 16-35mm II (not for the extra mm but due to it's ability to resist chromatic aberration) and keep my 17-40mm as a backup.  

I use a very small aperture (large number). F11 in my case. This is primarily a DOF based decision but it also influences overall image quality. Most lenses will produce their best results between f11 / f16 (maybe out to f20). It depends a lot on the lens itself.

Back to work...I've got a very large commercial project this week, some 50 shots as well as a portraiture project to finish. Whew!

Cheers, -B

Erica, thanks very much.

Jeff, glad you like the photos. Keep working on your own. The most important thing I try to remind folks who are learning photography is that it's just like accountancy or any other profession. It's 90% study, practice, 10% raw talent. Just keep working at it and you will improve!

Glad you found someone to speak. I was thinking of flying down but I'm just too busy this season. Nice problem to have I suppose. :)

-B 

Edite, I do a ton of work on these photos. Each one is a blend of at least three seperate exposures. I use special HDR software to accomplish this portion of the task. I've been talking to the makers of the software and I will be cross marketing with them soon as their feature photographer! Pretty cool. :)

I then import the blended image into photoshop where I run it through a gamut of fine tuning (color adjustment, contrast, retouching, distortion correction, masking out windows etc). It's a pretty laborious process but it's hard to beat if you are looking for the best results.

As a rule of thumb I typically spend 2x the time in post production compared to the actual shooting time.

Cheers, -B